In the next few years, the industry creating remote work systems will move on to a whole new level, believes Stan Yurchenko, an information system development expert. The tools that are available today, in his opinion, no longer fulfil the growing needs.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged numerous employers to quickly organize remote work for their employees. Schools, including elementary schools, faced the same challenge,” reminds Stan Yurchenko. “It became obvious quite quickly that nobody knew how to do it. Naturally, remote work has been around for a long time one way or another, but there is no mass culture of it, no generally accepted methods for managing large groups. Neither are there any software solutions for the mass user that are powerful enough.”
According to Stan Yurchenko, regardless of how fast the word deals with the pandemic, the tendency to switch employees to remote work will only grow and, consequently, software demands will grow as well. “Right now, we have a lot of good communication tools, video conferencing tools, task management tools. However, most of them are highly specialized and many, in addition, are too complex. There are no integrated remote offices for mass use,” states Stan Yurchenko.
“Everyone muddles along as best they can. Some have department meetings in Zoom, work-related Telegram chats and planning in Redmine. Others, talk in Skype and set tasks in Trello, yet still others use Whatsapp and Google calendar. All this requires training and new employees have to be re-trained,” explains Stan Yurchenko. “Integrated systems like Slack are only good for IT specialists; they’re too complicated and yet their functions are limited. There is no good universal solution to organize remote work today.”
The IT industry will unavoidably react to this vacuum, believes Stan Yurchenko. In the expert’s opinion, in the next few years we can expect mass interest in creating out-of-the-box solutions for a dispersed office. It is also likely that the popularity of various classes on organizing remote work will grow. “The most interesting thing is that the appearance of good products will nudge employers towards the idea of remote work even more, which, in turn, will increase demand for solutions. The process just might follow an expanding spiral,” concludes the expert.
Stanislav Vladimirovich Yurchenko (Stan Yurchenko) is a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, a prominent Russian expert in process automation and development of large information systems. At various times Stan Yurchenko participated and headed the development and implementation of digital systems in business framework and in government management. Stan Yurchenko is the Vice President of the Russian Academy of Business and Entrepreneurship.
